The first thing in garden making is the choice of a spot. Without a choice, it means simply doing the best one can with circumstances. With space restricted it resolves itself into no garden, or a box garden. Surely a box garden is better than nothing at all.



The garden, if achievable, should be planned out on paper. The plan is a great help when the real planting time comes. It saves time and unnecessary buying of seed.

New garden spots are likely to be found in two conditions : they are covered either with turf or with rubbish . In large garden areas the soil is ploughed and the sods turned under; but in little gardens get rid of the sod. How to take off the sod in the best manner is the next question . Stake and line off the garden spot. The line gives an accurate and straight course to follow. Cut the edges with the spade all along the line. If the area is a small one, say four feet by eighteen or twenty, this is an easy matter. Such a narrow strip may be marked off like a checkerboard, the sod cut through with the spade, and easily removed. This could be mde in two long strips cut lengthwise of the strip. When the turf is cut through, roll it right up like a roll of carpet.

Seeds choosing

In seed selection dimension is a tip to hold in mind. Now we know no method of telling anything about the plants from which this special group of seeds came. So we must give our entire attention to the seeds themselves. It is pretty clear that there is some option; some are much larger than the others; some far plumper, too. By all means choose the largest and fullest seed. The motive is this: When you break open a bean and this is very obvious, too, in the peanut you see what appears to be a tiny plant. So it is. Under just the right circumstances for growth this 'little chap' grows into the bean plant you know so well.

From large seeds come the strongest plantlets. That is the motive why it is better and safer to choose the large seed. It is the similar case exactly as that of weak children.

There is often another trouble in seeds that we buy. The trouble is contamination. Seeds are sometimes mixed with other seeds so like them in appearance that it is impossible to detect the fraud. Pretty poor business, is it not? The seeds may be unclean . Bits of alien matter in with large seed are very easy to discover . One can merely pick the seed over and make it clean. By clean is meant freedom from alien matter. But if small seed are unclean , it is very difficult, well nigh impossible, to make them clean.

Another thing to look out for in seed is viability. We know from our testing that seeds which look to the eye to be all right may not develop at all. There are reasons. Seeds may have been picked before they were ripe or full grown; they may have been frozen; and they may be too old. Seeds retain their viability or germ developing power, a certain number of years and are then useless. There is a viability limit in years which differs for different seeds.